15
THE NEXT GENERATION TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE GUIDE A service for consumers and companies to save, share & find recommended spots
THE NEXT GENERATION TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE GUIDE
A service for consumers and companies to save, share & find recommended spots
2
Why Sparkx
Sparkx is the next generation travel & lifestyle guide
Sparkx guides you to the best spots
Sparkx shows you what your friends recommend
Sparkx surprises you with valuable recommendations
Sparkx empowers you to share your spots everywhere
Sparkx connects you to other networks
Sparkx enables you to book
Our ambition is to be a leading international social directory in the field of travel & lifestyle.
Sparkx guides you to great spots
Sparkx helps people to find great & authentic spots, recommended by trusted sources: friends and Experts (magazines, newspapers, brands, local-experts, critics)
1. Search hotels, resorts,restaurants, B&B's, clubs, shops etc
2. See which trusted friends or Experts have visited a spot and read their review.
4
Your Sparkx Map
Sparkx lets everyone save & share visited and recommended spots in the world through a customizable guide, visualized in a Google map-format, called your Map.
To remember & show where you have been or what you recommend
Very easy to add any spot, through unique 3-step system
Customize your own Map
Sparkx is for everyone
Consumers Lifestyle journalists/bloggers
Magazines/ Newspapers
AirlinesHotels/chains/B&B’sSocial networks
=> Both B2C and B2B
6
Sparkx empowers to share anywhere
Integrate in blogs and personal and company websites
Share your Map/spots on popular social networks like Hyves, Twitter, Facebook etc.
Sparkx Mobile
Sparkx will focus on facilitating mobile: Recommended spots available any time and anywhere,
Location based.
Adding spots to your Sparkx Map while you're on the spot, with just a few clicks.
Booking hotels & restaurants through your mobile
8
Business Model
Sparkx main business model will be generating leads, for bookings and reservations of hotels, holiday homes and restaurants. Advertising (display & Adwords) will be secondary and supporting.
Users may book spots, easy & safe, and at the best rates.
Sparkx collaborates with specialized booking partners to facilitate hotel-, holiday homes–, and restaurant bookings.
Sparkx earns a percentage of the booking
When a spot is booked through the Map of one of our B2B-partners, earnings are shared.
9
Why now?
There is a continuously growing desire to save & share everything online.
Millions use online sources (Google etc) to orientate on travel destinations & spots like hotels, B&B’s, restaurants, bars, musea etc.
There’s an incremental need for trusted information due to online overload. Social search will take substantial share in online searchs .
Publishers, brands, social networks & spots are looking for ways to become more relevant online and/or generate more online revenues.
The most trusted tips come from Friends or Experts.
FriendsExperts: magazines, newspapers, blogs, brands, personalities critics etc.
10
Market & competition
Very interesting online travel market: currently $119 and will reach $158 billion by 2013.
Hotel bookings have substantial share in this number.
Holiday homes market is in a growth phase
Restaurant bookings is still in an early stage of development
Competition - potential substitutes or competition
Review Sites - Tripadvisor, Iens
Online trip planning – TripIt, Dopplr
Social Directories – Yelp, Qype
Special booking sites – Mr & Mrs Smith (potential partners)
The Market
11
Sparkx Team
Suzan Fluitman has been part of the online media industry since 1995. After her Dutch Law degree, she started working at Planet Internet and worked for VNU, @Home, Vizzavi and Vodafone. In her last job she was Head of Business Development Vodafone Live!. In 2003 she started her own online strategy- and marketing firm Fluitman.com, with clients like VNU, Heineken, Randstad, IceMobile etc.. Suzan is a board member of IPAN (Interactive Professionals Association Netherlands) and teaches online strategy at Lectric.
Andries Voskamp finished his Masters in Entrepreneurship at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and has experience in the music industry at EMI/Virgin in New York with marketing, online and new business. He then co-founded Sparkx and was involved in other online ventures, such as ‘National Healthweek’.
12
Sparkx Today
After two years of development, Sparkx:
is up and running! has developed a savvy technical
application to Map and add all spots
is seamlessly connected to Facebook and other networks
is a social directory with over 2.250 travel & lifestyle spots and 7.000 members
is now ready to move to the next level! Sparkx Home: Latest
updates of Friends
13
Approach to Market
Strategy – key focus on:
attract and activate B2B partners partnerships with publishers, critics, brands, social networks. They provide:
Content → since they save spots through Sparkx service & database
Traffic → since they integrate Map on own website
Users: active community management / stimulate members , create PR/Free publicity buzz
Plug & Play Functionality: new developments, enhance widget application, i-frame, connections with other networks
Trusted content: partner with B2B-partners; select ambassadors
Revenues: bookable spots through partnerships with specialized affiliate partners and offer services to hotels.
Availability on mobile: save, share and find spots location based
14
The next step
To be able to invest in Business Development and the further development of features and functionalities, Sparkx is currently looking for growth capital.
Funding Requirement year 1: € 375.000
Funding Requirement year 2: € 125.000
Subsequent growth funding at milestones.
15
Contact details
Please contact us for any further information you might require.
Suzan Fluitman – [email protected] - +31(0)627064783
Andries Voskamp – [email protected] +31(0)624682890
And of course, we welcome you to visit http://www.sparkx.com
